McGill University Thèses et mémoires par auteur commençant par A

In the second half of the twentieth century, the concept of “performativity” came to play a leading role in academic discourse in the philosophy of language, deconstruction, queer and gender studies, art theory, and performance studies. Most recently, it has taken centre stage in the emerging interdisciplinary field of performance philosophy. Despite its ubiquity, however, performativity remains enigmatic. Accounting for the capacity of speech to bring about the action that it designates, and the processes through which identities are enacted, and meaning is produced, the concept lies somewhere in the tensions among language, embodiment, and action. As such, it is …  Lire la suite

This thesis is an analysis of National Socialist violence and anti-Semitism as propaganda from 1928-1934. It states that the primary role of NSDAP violence and anti-Semitic propaganda was to mute public opinion in Germany, and to manipulate the German population into a state of apathy regarding National Socialist policy. To this end, the effects of National Socialist violence end anti-Semitism on Germans, Jews, and the British foreign press are analyzed.  Lire la suite

There are currently several therapies available to treat low bone mass disease that either stimulate osteoblastic bone formation (anabolic) or inhibit osteoclast resorption (anti-resorptive). Many of these therapies come with drawbacks that ranges from constrained therapeutic regimes to more serious risks of myocardial infarction, stroke, and cardiovascular death. There thus remains a need for new osteoanabolic drugs, with different mechanisms of action, leading to more effective and safer treatments to stimulate bone formation in patients with low bone mass. Our long-standing research on the transcriptional repressor FIAT (Factor Inhibiting ATF4-mediated Transcription) has characterized it as a valid target for drug …  Lire la suite

A spectral analysis of northward beat transport in the northern hemisphere was performed by the Fourier analysis method. This method was applied at 500 mb, 100 mb and 25 mb for five-day intervals from October 5, 1959 through March 28, 1960. A comparison of stratospheric warmings of this period with those of the previous year studied by Boville (1961), revealed that the heat transport could be accomplished mainly by wave numbers one and/or two. From 500-mb, 100-mb and 25-mb time-sections of northward heat transport, divergences were determined to calculate the local temperature time derivatives. These derivatives were in turn compared …  Lire la suite

A central tenet of democratic theory is that the exercise of governance be both legitimate and accountable. Elections constitute the fundamental means through which these ends are met. Critical to this process is the ability of the citizen to correctly assign responsibility for government action. Institutional arrangements are central to defining the pathways of accountability. In institutional contexts with only one level of government, assigning responsibility is relatively straightforward. However, in situations of multiple and overlapping levels of government, the process of correctly assigning responsibility and ultimately holding governments accountable for their actions is much more difficult. In comparative contexts, …  Lire la suite

Currents and sea level fluctuations in the Avalon Channel, driven over a broad range of time scales by buoyancy forces, atmospheric pressure, and wind stress, are described and compared with dynamical theory. Seasonal fluctuations in adjusted coastal sea level at St. John's are shown to be consistent with steric height and bottom pressure variations 3 km offshore in a depth of 180 m. Low frequency fluctuations (periods of 7-50 d) in observed Avalon Channel currents and water properties suggest the presence of a baroclinically-unstable, buoyancy-driven coastal current. A kinematic analysis of the current fluctuations reveals an eddy structure resembling that …  Lire la suite

Through an in-depth study of the Canadian case, this thesis demonstrates how a loss of control over national borders can result from liberal-democratic state efforts to restrict the rights of non-citizens. It argues that the gaps created between certain fundamental due process and equality rights and state control practice increase the risk of policy failure by opening up avenues along which the authority and capacity of the state can be challenged effectively---by encouraging rights-based politics, irregular migration, and administrative inefficiencies. Part I provides an overview of recent international migration trends, followed by a detailed examination of the liberal-democratic control literature, …  Lire la suite

Bell, J. (Supervisors)  Lire la suite

This is a study of certain aspects of the decision making process in the employment interview. Attention is directed primarily to the relation between verbal behavior in the interview and the interviewer’s decision to employ or not to employ the applicant. Studies of the employment interview have not, in general, been concerned with the manner in which the interviewer reaches his decision. Interest has been focused on the reliability of the decision and on its validity as a predictor of job success. The empirical nature of these studies has resulted partly from concern with the immediate applied problems of improving …  Lire la suite

This thesis presents a study of the validity of video portfolios as an assessment tool. For this study, first and second grade students were videotaped doing exercises four times in reading and four times in math over the course of a school year. After portfolios were collected, each set of four videos (either math or reading) was shown to teachers in random order. The teachers were asked to put the clips into the correct chronological and, therefore, developmental order. Interviews after the task investigated the criteria teachers used to order the clips, and found that they used task complexity, task …  Lire la suite

Ford, James (Internal/Supervisor)  Lire la suite

Notre thèse soutient l'idée que la tragédie de la renaissance anglaise reflète la culture religieuse de l'époque dans son évocation de la violence sacrificielle. Elle conteste les présupposés du néo-historicisme à l'égard de la relation entre la religion et la politique et entre la religion et la littérature, en proposant que les dramaturges exprimaient à travers leurs tragédies une crise sacrificielle girardienne qui caractérisait les exécutions des martyres au seizième siècle et qui était alimentée par une crise de conscience par rapport à la violence qui s'exprimait au sein même de l'église. Le premier chapitre fait état du contexte historique. …  Lire la suite

The extensive equipment which is described has been built up for the study of magnetic moments of nuclei, particularly for accurate comparison of their gyromagnetic ratios, and the relative spins of isotopes. The nuclear induction and the nuclear absorption resonances of the proton have been observed. The induction resonance of B^11 has been observed at around 10 mc. in an alkaline solution of KB02. Its frequency has been compared with that of the proton in the same field giving a measure of the ratio of the two gyromagnetic ratios: ɤB/ɤP = 0.320904 ± 4.3 x 10^-6 [...]  Lire la suite

La production d'énergie à partir de la biomasse et des résidus de culture est une solution proposée à la crise énergétique persistante du Pakistan. Cependant, les estimations actuelles du potentiel énergétique des résidus varient considérablement en raison des différences d'échelles et d'hypothèses. En outre, malgré les interdépendances significatives entre l'énergie basée sur les résidus et les systèmes agricoles et hydriques, les analyses quantitatives des implications du lien eau-énergie-alimentation (EEA) sur le potentiel énergétique des résidus sont inexistantes dans la littérature. L'absence de prise en compte des effets d'échelle, des hypothèses et des facteurs liés au lien EEA, tels que les …  Lire la suite

This project was started in the summer of 1932 when it was felt that a knowledge or the germination behaviour of weed seeds, would enable the Division of Botany of the Central Experimental Farm, Ottawa, Canada, to complete the life history of many weeds. As considerable work has already been done on the effects of burial, these weed seeds were stored in bottles and in envelopes and kept in a laboratory under ordinary conditions of heat and light, etc. By periodically testing these seeds for germination it was hoped that specific differences in viability and changes in germination capacity due …  Lire la suite

La demande mondiale en batteries lithium-ion a connu une forte augmentation au cours de la dernière décennie, ces dispositifs ayant évolué du secteur de l'électronique des consommateurs vers les véhicules électriques et les applications de stockage sur réseau. Cette forte demande rend d'autant plus urgent le besoin d'une densité énergétique accrue et d'une sécurité renforcée. L'une des améliorations les plus importantes actuellement étudiées consiste à remplacer l'anode en graphite et l'électrolyte liquide inflammable actuels par une anode en lithium métallique et un électrolyte solide inerte. Cela nécessite notamment un électrolyte hautement conducteur d’ions de lithium, isolant électroniquement, stable électrochimiquement vis-à-vis …  Lire la suite

A study has been made of the physiological properties of the thyreotropic hormone of the anterior pituitary. Evidence of hyperfunction of the thyroid has been shown to occur in the rat and guinea pig following injection of the hormone. The toxins of staphylococcus aureus accentuate the effect of the thyreotropic hormone in the rat. Replacement therapy has been accomplished in the hypophysectomized rat with the thyreotropic hormone. A study has been made of the resistance to the hormone which develops in animals after prolonged injections. A substance which inhibits the action of thyreotropic hormone has been found in the serum …  Lire la suite

Since the beginning of geological investigation of the Rocky Mountain Geosyncline (1) in southwest Alberta and in southeast British Columbia, the problem of the origin of the lower cretaceous sediments has repeatedly arisen. [...]  Lire la suite

The Woodstook and Millville areas are in the continuation of the New England Province of the Northern Appalachians. The oldest exposed rocks are sedimentary and are presumed to be Ordovician in age. Overlying these are Silurian sediments, which contain the iron and manganese deposits of the Woodstook area. The Ordovician and Silurian sediments indicate deposition in an unstable marine geosynclinal environment. Granite and allied rocks intruded the Silurian and older strata during the Devonian period.  Lire la suite

It was the fortune of Andrew Melville, no less than of John Knox, to have received sufficient training outside his native land to make a European out of one who might otherwise have been a parochial Scotsman. The intellectual stimuli to which he was exposed in Europe undoubtedly contributed greatly to his later effectiveness as chief exponent of Presbyterian doctrines among his own race. Since such of the importance of Andrew Melville lies in the distinctive role he played as mediator in the struggle between the interests of church and state in Scotland, one can obtain little understanding of his …  Lire la suite

Pickling of codfish is an important industry in Newfoundland, success in which is dependent upon a number of microbiological factors. These factors have not received adequate elucidation. Accordingly a study of the microbiological aspects of codfish pickling has been undertaken. [...]  Lire la suite

Quebec has now been firmly launched on a path of redevelopment- an educational experiment of a type and magnitude unheard of in recent times. For, in no other nation has there been such a wide-spread reorganization of an educational system, a dual system at that. Other experiments, generally involving developing nations, have been neither so rapid or comprehensive nor have they had so many resources with which to work. [...]  Lire la suite

Today in Canada there are approximately sixty-one million acres of land which are devoted to pastures and ranges, of which the greatest proportion is in a natural or unimproved condition, and therefore peak production is far from being realized. A fact that has been long known is that the sod crop represents the heart of a farm rotation. [...]  Lire la suite

The concept of status congruence implies that the individual occupies positions in several vertical status hierarchies instead of in a single hierarchy. Given the presence of several status hierarchies, for exmple, education, occupation, and income, the individual may occupy equivalent positions in each or dissimilar positions in all or some of them. [...]  Lire la suite

The importance of fossils to phylogenetic reconstruction is well established. However, analyses of fossil data sets are confounded by problems related to the incomplete nature of the specimens. Taxa that are incompletely known are problematic because of the uncertainty of their placement within a tree, leading to a proliferation of most parsimonious solutions because of wild card behavior. Problematic taxa are commonly deleted based on a priori criteria of completeness. Paradoxically, a taxon's problematic behavior is tree dependent, and levels of completeness are not necessarily associated with problematic behavior. Exclusion of taxa based on completeness eliminates real character conflict and, …  Lire la suite

This study was undertaken in an attempt to make a survey of the parasites of the common frog of Quebec, Rana pipiens. Many investigations of single groups of entozoa, found in amphibia of North America, have been made. There are, however, fewer complete studies of single hosts. The following work is based on Rana pipiens; animals from two localities being used. The following report consists simply of a description of the parasites and the part of the body in which they were found.  Lire la suite

The thesis examines the emergence of a new idea--trade union investment funds. The thesis looks at their establishment in Sweden, Italy and Quebec in the years 1983-84. The thesis aims to compare these three funds, the first three in the developed countries, and attempts to explain the reason for the important differences between the funds. The thesis situates the funds within the overall concept of economic democracy and traces a brief historical sketch of the development of this idea. The evolution of the general fund idea is exposed as is the debate over the significance of the funds in intellectual, …  Lire la suite

Fuhrer, Rebecca (Supervisor1)  Lire la suite

Semiconductor nanocrystals exhibit strongly size-dependent absorption spectra and consequently are of great interest for use in nanoscale devices. As the excited states of these crystals are short-lived, spectroscopic investigation of the nature and size dependence of their energy levels requires femtosecond laser pulses. We have synthesized cadmium selenide nanocrystals and constructed a femtosecond instrument around a commercial laser system from Coherent to study them. The instrument is capable of measuring the autocorrelation and crosscorrelation of laser pulses and can measure the transient absorption dynamics of nanocrystals via pump-probe spectroscopy. A novel means of simultaneously measuring the dynamics associated with two …  Lire la suite

In the United States, the transition from aristocratic agriculturalism to liberal democratic industrialism was distinguished from instances of this transformation in other countries by a threat to the territorial integrity of the Union. In this dissertation, I provide novel insight into this unique challenge and its link to American political development. Drawing on recent works on the process of secession, I have developed an innovative framework for the analysis of secession in which the institutional design of the state plays a central role in facilitating this act of territorial and political withdrawal. This framework specifies five factors that contribute to …  Lire la suite

Traditional interpretations of Plato see him either as an enemy of the imagination in his views of philosophic discussion, or as a purveyor of imaginative lies in his authoritarian and anti-democratic view of politics. Instead this thesis challenges both these interpretations by showing how the imagination is both philosophical and democratically political. In the Republic images and stories balance and enrich rational argumentation. I first analyze the imaginary aspects of Plato's ideal city. Secondly, I look more closely to the role of images in education and poetry by focusing on Plato's distinction between good and bad images. Thirdly, I discuss …  Lire la suite

Although more and more women are present in university, feminist scholars contend that we have been and often still are viewed as "other" in this context. This position of "outsider" can problematize academic discourse for women writers. This qualitative study explores the search for authority as academic writers among twelve re-entry women graduate students. This quest is explored as a social process within the university setting. The study argues that re-entry graduate women encounter the problem of "authority" at several levels: in their experience of self as academics; in their experience of the academic milieu; and in their relation to …  Lire la suite

Against the backdrop of government economic liberalization policies beginning in 1986, Việt Nam's tourism industry has expanded rapidly since the 1990s. From this, one dominant trade that has emerged has been the marketing and distribution of hand-embroidered textiles produced by upland ethnic minorities, such as the Hmong and Yao, by lowland Vietnamese traders. This trade, then, offers a lens through which to critically analyze the complex relationships between ethnic majority and minority groups in Việt Nam. Drawing upon qualitative research, I investigate the shape and scope of these multi-ethnic textile commodity chains, and I draw focus to the individuals navigating …  Lire la suite

At the close of the eighth century the third of the Umawi amirs ascended the throne of al-Andalus to be greeted immediately by a rebellion in one of his major towns. This set the stage for a reign which was filled with rebellion and unrest. The border Marches revolted as their governors sought to make themselves independent a mob of his subjects stormed his palace in Cordoba and almost succeeded in capturing it , he was jeered at when he walked through the streets of Cordoba to the mosque, and at one point he uncovered a plot involving some of …  Lire la suite

At the close of the eighth century the third of the Umawi amirs ascended the throne of al-Andalus to be greeted immediately by a rebellion in one of his major towns. This set the stage for a reign which was filled with rebellion and unrest. The border Marches revolted as their governors sought to make themselves independent, a mob of his subjects stormed his palace in Cordoba and almost succeeded in capturing it, he was jeered at when he walked through the streets of Cordoba to the mosque, and at one point he uncovered a plot involving some of the …  Lire la suite

Ever since the colon bacillus was isolated by Escherich in 1856 from the dejecta of a breast-fed infant and subsequently, in 1884, from the feces of a cholera patient, and it was shortly afterwards found to be a normal inhabitant of the intestinaltract of man and animals, the colon bacteria have formed a nucleus around which the investigations of scientists have centred. [...]  Lire la suite

Given the sheer volume of scholarship which has been devoted to examining Paul and his congregations, it is surprising that so little attention has been paid to what the texts portray as the apostle's main concern: not what his congregations were in any 'objective', historical sense, but what they were 'in Christ'. Building on this observation, my thesis may be stated as follows. Traditional Pauline studies, with their emphases either on the apostle's thought or on his congregations' historical situation, obscure the importance of the 'church in the work', a reality established in the text, structured to engender change, and …  Lire la suite

On a utilisé une préparation d'alpha-bungarotoxine couplée avec des molécules fluorescentes pour étudier la distribution des récepteurs pour l'acétylcholine dans les cellules musculaires amphibiennes en culture. Toutes les cellules non-innervées développent, en moins de deux jours de culture, des régions isolées possédant une haute densité de récepteurs. L'innervation cause le développement d'une région à haute densité de récepteurs le long de la trajectoire de contact du nerf. Ce changement comporte la formation de nouvelles région à haute densité de récepteurs dans la membrane sous-neurale, et il se produit indépendamment de l'activité synaptique. Den changements similaires se produisent quand des cultures …  Lire la suite

For many years, measurements of the light transmittedby thin films of nonhemolyzed whole blood have been usedfor estimating oxygen saturation. More recently, rafleetancemeasurements of thick layers of nonhemolyzed bloodhave been used for the same purpose. The lack of precisionof these empirical techniques suggested to us t'hat morebasic work was required to investigate the light scatteringand absorbing properties of nonhemolyzed blood. [...]  Lire la suite

This thesis is based on recent work by Paige which gave a formalism for presenting and analyzing the class of algorithms which manipulate an appropriate Krylov subspace in solving large sparse systems of linear equations. This formalism--a way of dividing a method of solution into a Krylov process and an associated subproblem--is described and then applied to several of the more popular algorithms in use today including the methods of Conjugate Gradients and BiConjugate Gradients. The aim is to clarify these algorithms to make them easier to understand, analyze and use. Several of the methods presented in this thesis were …  Lire la suite

The Bund deutscher Madel (BdM), a Nazi youth organization for girls, was sponsored, organized, and promoted by Adolf Hitler's National Socialist Party. The BdM instilled values and beliefs of National Socialism in German girls, and encouraged attitudes and behavior in them that harmonized with Party views on womanhood. Political indoctrination for girls often came through music---especially song. Musical repertoire of the BdM strongly interconnects with the organization's development, internal structure and political philosophies. My thesis analyses the relations between music, the BdM, National Socialism, and gender. Historical perspectives are documented to clarify the function and intention of the BdM, including …  Lire la suite

Porter, J. (Supervisors)  Lire la suite